Channel Islands: Saving Lost Latino Community History

Oxnard's historic Wagon Wheel community was demolished in 2014 and replaced with a 120-unit apartment complex, displacing low-income immigrants and Spanish-speaking field workers with strong ties of history, community and identity. CSUCI students in a Chicana/o Studies special topics course worked with Cabrillo Economic Development to recover and preserve the rich history of this overlooked multiethnic community. After researching other Latino communities displaced by development to gain a deeper understanding of its impact on residents, students conducted oral interviews, documenting shared memory and community history. Their future goal is to create an oral-history collection to be housed in the new Wagon Wheel Family Apartments complex.

In 2015, Cal Maritime’s annual Martin Luther King Day of Service, held at the historic ship Red Oak Victory docked in Richmond, California, involved 47 cadets in 324 hours of service to the ongoing restoration project.

Oxnard's historic Wagon Wheel community was demolished in 2014 and replaced with a 120-unit apartment complex, displacing low-income immigrants and Spanish-speaking field workers with strong ties of history, community and identity.

CSUSB history students and Patton State Hospital staff cataloged hundreds of photos, documents and artifacts for Southern California’s first museum of past psychiatric practices. Patton, California’s first homeopathic state hospital, offered then-innovative treatments.